Color-Changing Smart Cups Detect Date Rape Drugs

Date rape drugs are often times very hard to detect because they are odorless, colorless, and tasteless, and many unsuspecting drinkers aren't aware they've been drugged with drugs like Rohypnol until it's too late.

However, a new start-up company called DrinkSavvy, is developing a line of cups, straws and drink stirrers that can detect "date rape" drugs instantly.

Founder Mike Abramson said he was inspired to create the invention after he himself was drugged.

"Within the past three years, three of my very close friends - and myself - have been the unwitting victims of being drugged," he said in a fundraising video. "And I want to prevent it from happening to anyone else."

Abramson had worked with Dr. John MacDonald, a chemistry professor at Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Massachusetts, to create a special material that changes color when it is exposed to three common "date rape" drugs: GHB, ketamine, and Rohypnol.

Thousands of women fall victim to date rape drugs every year. The drugs work by attacking the central nervous system, and once they are consumed they can cause drowsiness, amnesia and blackouts.

Abramson hopes to turn his newly developed material into straws, stirrers, plastic cups, glassware, and eventually even bottles and cans. In glass, the material would change from clear to red if drugs have been slipped in the drink.

"I was thinking that I needed to develop something that was discreet, effortless, and continuous," he said.

However, it may be some time before these drug-detecting drinking devices are seen in bars and clubs.

DrinkSavvy has had to go public to help raise money. The company has so far raised a little less than half of its $50,000 goal.

The latest drug-detecting tools aren't exactly the first invented. In August, Israeli scientists at Tel Aviv University developed an anti-date rape sensor that looked like a straw. The scientists said that the sensor could detect two common date rape drugs, ketamine and GHB, with 100 percent accuracy.